Born in "THE" Bronx, raised on Long Island...stints in Rochester, NY; Manhattan, NY; Andover, MA; Montclair & West Windsor, NJ and now Memphis, TN., our cuisine of birth is Italian, but we enjoy cooking Chinese, Mexican, American and hodge-podge.

Our recipes will be as accurate as possible, but you see, I rarely measure things. I prefer to combine based upon taste.

Also, I will use brand names on occasion, but am not sponsored by any company and these mentions do not put cash into my pocket.

Music is my other love & we will share music related to food (in even the smallest sense) with y'all with every new post.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Foodbuzz.com is a site for food bloggers. Both average, everyday people and skilled cooks whose lives are spent in the kitchen. The one common factor is they love to share their passion.

Back in March of 2009, after a conversation with a good friend who had begun a cooking blog, I joined this community.

As I look through so many of the contestants, I know that I have not been as prolific here on my food blog as I have been on my everyday blog and my music blog.

Yes, I also write a music blog and host a show on BlogTalk Radio about independent musicians. Music and food...my passions in life.

They have been since I was a child. I have vivid memories of sitting in the kitchens of both my grandmothers and my mom and watching them as they created wonderful meals.

As I got older, I was there with mom rolling meatballs on a Sunday. Watching as she painstakingly added wonderfully aromatic ingredients to create Sunday gravy or another meal.

What do I share on Mangia Y'all? Well, I have a three part video on making lasagna...friends laughed at it's length and looking back, I could have edited more...but as I am verbose in my writing, I tend to be that way in real life.

I also love to share my weekend cooking sessions where I cook multiple meals and then vacuum seal and store for future use. Other recipes are those that come from my head and even when I find a deliciously wonderful recipe in one of my 60 or so cookbooks, I will share that as well. I even share the tools of the trade I use when in the kitchen, because some people who read are not as acquainted with the proper tools

Walking into my kitchen with nothing planned for dinner and then opening the cupboards and freezer to see what is available and creating a meal from thin air is a challenge I throw at myself from time to time.

I am me...nothing more, nothing less. I am not going to recreate an entire cuisine and change the way the world cooks.

What I will do is show you tricks, explain the differences in taste of various ingredients and give those who read me a new idea to treat your family and friends.

I have been told I am successful in explaining techniques in simple terms for those of my friends who are not kitchen friendly. This makes me smile.

Cooking meals for friends is always a challenge, and in this case, I add extra challenges to myself. Normally, if you are coming to my home for dinner, you will be served something I have never tried before.

Why? because I find it fun to try new foods with friends...and my friends now know they are guinea pigs when they accept an invite.

When I am cooking I keep my camera close so I can record the steps.

Much luck to all of the contestants in the FoodBuzz Project Food Blog Challenge. Whether I make it one week or 10, I will be following the progress closely...

Monday, July 26, 2010

I realized that I have not swapped over to the new format for this blog and will have t do so over the next few weeks.

A beautiful Saturday night and a need for some seafood brought us to reach for one of my favorite books for cooking on the grill - Bobby Flay's "Boy Gets Grill". I flipped through looking for something that caught my fancy and three recipes jumped out.

They were "Tomato bread With Prosciutto", Grilled Sea Scallops With Papaya-Tomatillo Salsa" and Grilled Clams In The Shell With Serrano Ham".

Having an International Market within 20 minutes meant I knew I could get the tomatillos, papaya, and the seafood needed for the recipes.

We had an abundance of tomatoes from the garden of Nancy's brother, so the Tomato Bread with Prosciutto was an easy choice.

I did substitute Prosciutto for the Serrano Ham with the clams to keep the flavor consistent across all three dishes.

Place clams directly on grate of grill, close cover until clams over (5-7 minutes)

Remove clams to a platter, stuff with a piece of Prosciutto and drizzle olive oil over entire platter.

Add a drop of hot sauce to each before eating (if you like it a tad spicy...I DO!)

Serve immediately.

The corn on the plate was also grilled in the husks (after removing the silk and soaking in water for 20 minutes.

Once cooked, I spread with some garlic butter, squeezed fresh lime juice on top and then sprinkled with crumbled queso fresco

Actually it is all very simple, with just about a half hour or so of prep...and on a nice summer day...the lightness of the seafood, combined with the juiciness of the salsa is a wonderful dinner idea.

Monday, January 11, 2010

This is the third of the series from a weekend o cooking about a month ago.

In PART 1 we described how it all came about and prepared "Chicken in Sherry Cream Sauce". In PART 2 last week we shared the recipes for "Pork Chops In Mustard Sauce" and "Beef & Spinach Patties" and discussed how we prepped the food for freezing and reheating.

Today, two of my favorites from the weekend:

"GROUND BEEF AND MACARONI MEDLEY"This will make 4 servings and can be halved or doubled(when doubling use liquid form 1/1/2 cans of tomatoes)

Add pork chops and cook over medium heat for 6 minutes per side or until pinkness is gone when cut in center.

Remove pork chops and keep warm.

Increase heat to high and add remaining butter and the onion

Saute 1 minute while stirring

Stir in the cornstarch.

Slowly add the wine and broth, stirring briskly.

Cook until thickened and smooth.

Stir in the mustard.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour sauce over Pork Chops and serve.

I served them with a nice baked yam and sauteed artichoke hearts...yummo!

When cooking in bulk, you must be able to freeze the meals for future use.

There is no better way to freeze food than with the Food Saver System. I am advocating the use of this tremendous machine without any compensation whatsoever. I have owned one for many years, but for our wedding we received the newest model and the company must be credited with their innovations.

The new machine is vertical, so it takes up very little counter space. It has two different speed settings, so you can now seal softer foods without squishing them. It also has a moisture setting which recognizes the presence of moisture and cuts the vacuum off and seals without sucking the liquid into the machinery.

I have found putting the sauces into the small snack size zip-lock bags works wonderfully. If you just put the sauce into the same bag as the meat, the sauce gets absorbed into the meats and you do not have enough when serving the meal.

In this case, I made of 3 packages containing 2 Pork Chops each with a zip-lock of sauce and then 3 packages with one Pork Chop and sauce.

When you are ready to eat, you can remove the bag from the freezer and work one of two methods...

The first is to let the meal defrost and then you can either put the meat into a casserole and put it into the oven at about 300 degrees to warm or you can put the pouch into a pot of water that is simmering on the stove and let it heat for about 15 minutes.

When you are ready to serve, take the gravy out of the small zip-lock and put it into a small bowl, stir and microwave for 60 seconds.

The second method, for when you do not have time to defrost is to put the whole pouch into a pot of lightly boiling water on the stove for about 30 minutes. The meal should be defrosted and warmed. Once again, take the sauce and put into a bowl, stir and microwave before pouring over the meat.

Another meal made that day was:

"Beef & Spinach Patties"This recipe makes 4 servings and can be halved or doubled.When doubling, only use 3/4 cup of red wine.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Taking a whole day and preparing meals for a month's worth of eating is something I have always enjoyed. It has not been possible since I moved South, as I have not had the necessary freezer space for this event to make sense.

Recently, my bride and I had a garage sale after combining our households and after it was over we purchased a 7.2 cubic foot chest freezer.

As a wedding gift, we also received the newest Food Saver which has settings for moist foods and is more automatic than the older models. I love my Food Saver and have had one for many years.

They allow you to freeze food and then, when you are ready, to eat a meal that tastes as fresh as the day it was made.

On this particular weekend, with the assistance of my bride, we were able to prepare the following:

That is 47 individual main courses (and in the case of the two casseroles, a full meal), and the entire food bill was under $80.00 for all of the meats. We did go to Costco for the meats, to take advantage of their discounts on larger portions.

We had much of the vegetables and spices needed to complete all of the meals, so that saved on costs. Additionally, I boned my chicken breasts thus saving the additional costs associated with buying the chicken boneless.

First step in this whole process is to make sure you have at least two cutting boards. One for your meats and one for your vegetables.

Then cut up all the veggies for all the recipes. Every recipe I made called for onions in some form. I had a big bowl and I chopped the onions one at a time and put them in the bowl separated by a piece of wax paper. This way I grabbed one layer for every onion required.

I did the same for the celery, peppers, mushrooms, potatoes and all the other veggies and herbs needed.

Then I began to work with the meats. Having reviewed all of the recipes, I put them in a very loose order for prep based upon cooking methods, times, and temperatures.

The Chicken was prepared Friday evening, so we will address that first and then in our next edition we will deal with half of Saturday. In the final part, we will address the remainder of Saturday and the storage of all the meals.

Brown the chicken in butter over medium high heat about 5 minutesWhile the chicken cooks, marinate the mushrooms in the lemon juiceAdd the sherry to the pan - turn the chicken over and cook another 5 minutes

Do not over cook the breasts - it will ruin this or any other dinner

Remove chicken to a warm platterTurn heat to high and let liquid mixture reduce down to 1/4 cupAdd the mushrooms and saute until their liquid evaporatesAdd the whipping cream and boil over high heat until it reducesLower the heat

Return the chicken to the pan and simmer until the chicken is rewarmed completely

You can reduce this time by letting the chicken rest in a 170 degree oven in a cake pan until you need it again

Sprinkle with cheese

We served it this night with rosemary roasted potato wedges, steamed green beans and - OF COURSE! - crusty bread!

Your Chef...

Memphis Time

The recipes here are my own, family members or variations of recipes I have found and will be credited as such.
Please enjoy the information you find here and share if you please, but remember to credit Mangia Y'all whenever you do.

Acknowledgements

Thank you Liz for handing me the tag line from which the format for this blog evolved.My dear friend is found at Bluegrass Foodie and she came up with "Italian Yankee In King Elvis' Court"